


A Disappointing Boat, Which is a Metaphor for Eridan's Bulge

by Cephalopod



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Exploitation, Forced Masturbation, Hostage Situations, Non-Consensual Voyeurism, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-08
Updated: 2017-07-08
Packaged: 2018-11-29 13:11:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11441586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cephalopod/pseuds/Cephalopod
Summary: “TAKE OFF YOUR PANTS,” said the whale.





	A Disappointing Boat, Which is a Metaphor for Eridan's Bulge

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Vulnerasti_Cor_Meum](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vulnerasti_Cor_Meum/gifts).



It was a beautiful evening on the ocean, now that the sun had set and the dimming light was turning bluish and satiny on the water. A generous sprinkling of wooden flotsam drifted to and fro, some trailing shreds of sturdy canvas. Anyone seeing it would say that it was a beautiful evening, unless they were Eridan, in which case they would say instead: “Fuck you, you fuckin’ wwhale.” 

“HELLO,” said the whale, foam still rafting down the dome of its enormous head as it rose ponderously from the water’s surface. Enormous, gentle waves lifted first the whale, then the wooden rowboat carrying Eridan. It had seen better days; it was bleached by the sun, badly dented and gouged, and with a cracked beam near the stern from a recent collision. It listed. There was a puddle inside, which Eridan’s foot plashed in impatiently. 

“YOUR BOAT IS DISAPPOINTING,” it added. 

“You shoulda seen the much bigger boat it came from,” Eridan snapped, “wwhich I sunk, on account of its captain bein a chump and less good at boats than me.” 

The whale submerged. Eridan flipped off the inrush of water where its head had been; barely a second later, the rowboat tipped violently and Eridan was sluiced out of it facefirst to collect a mouthful of barnacles growing on the whale’s cool, rubbery hide. Chewing savagely, he thrashed to his feet and opened his mouth to tell the thing off.

“I said-”

“THAT WAS A METAPHOR,” boomed the whale, “FOR YOUR BULGE.”

Eridan spat out a wad of pulverized shell, which plapped down satisfyingly next to the whale’s blowhole. “Like you’d fuckin’ know,” he said. “Bet you’ve never evven seen one. Cause if you had, you’d knoww mine is nearly imperial in scale and vvigor.”

“YOU AREN’T THE ONLY TROLL I TALK TO, YOU KNOW.”

“Yeah, wwell, sucks to be them cause you’re chapping m-”

“EVERYONE ELSE’S BOATS ARE MUCH LESS DISAPPOINTING.” A larger-than-normal wave washed over them both, obliging Eridan to hook a hand into the whale’s clamped blowhole for anchorage. After the bulk of the wave had washed over and past them, Eridan pulled his hand free with a wince. 

“THAT WAS STILL A METAPHOR,” the whale clarified. “FOR BULGES.”

“Wwhere’s that stupid boat anyway?” Eridan shaded his eyes from the last vestiges of sunlight and scanned the ocean; there was no sign of it. It was wood, dammit. Even if it had broken apart, he should have been able to see bits and pieces.  
“I ATE IT,” said the whale. “DO YOU WANT IT BACK?”

“I’m not swwimmin home, am I?”

The whale was silent for the space of another few waves. Eridan kicked at barnacles. 

“DO YOU KNOW HOW WEIRD THAT IS,” it asked. “BECAUSE YOU LIVE IN THE OCEAN.”

“Fuck off. It’s an island. Wwhich you’d knoww if you wwere payin even a hint of attention.”

“I REALLY WASN’T.”

“Look, globesniffer, just givve me back the stupid boat so I can start rowwin.”

“TAKE OFF YOUR PANTS,” said the whale.

“Take off YOUR fuckin’ pants.”

“DONE,” said the whale, its booming tones a little smug. “YOUR TURN. ALSO, YOU WALKED DIRECTLY INTO THAT EVEN THOUGH IT WAS VERY OBVIOUS.” It rolled lazily to one side, far enough to swoosh a flipper lazily across the surface as its tail fanned behind it. Its eye rose above the water for the first time, and Eridan traversed the long curve of its torso to flip it off again where he could be absolutely sure it would see. The whale blinked at him. 

“You don’t even have the fuckin’ boat.”

The whale slowly, ponderously, opened its mouth. The hide under Eridan’s feet pulsed once, and a gush of sour-scented bubbles coursed to the surface. When the water stilled, there was a beat-up oar gently bobbing next to the whale’s head.

“MORE WHERE THAT CAME FROM,” it said. “EXCEPT THAT YOU STILL HAVE YOUR PANTS ON, WHICH MEANS YOU WILL NOT GET YOUR BOAT BACK BECAUSE IT IS MY BOAT RIGHT NOW.”

Earfins flaring, flushed chilly violet, Eridan reared back a leg to deliver an extremely satisfying kick to the whale’s dorsal fin. Its enormous body gave a hollow, resonant THUD.

“I’m not takin em off, you piece a shit wwhale! I’m keepin em on and you’re givvin me back the boat and then you’re leavvin me the globes alone! Wwhat did I evver evven do to deservve this pile a steamin hoofbeast offal?”

The whale rolled itself upright again. “YOU COULD ALWAYS JUST SWIM, YOU KNOW.”

“Shut up.”

“IT IS VERY STRANGE THAT YOU ARE A SEADWELLING TROLL WITH GILLS AND EVERYTHING BUT YOU WOULD STILL RATHER STAND ON ME.”

“It’s none a your business. There’s reasons.”

“I COULD DIVE, YOU KNOW.”

“Or you could just gimme back the fuckin boat.”

“OR YOU COULD TAKE YOUR PANTS OFF.”

Eridan let out an exasperated groan and paced the whale’s dorsal surface. After a few passes, it became increasingly obvious that the whale was, ever so slowly, sinking in the water. Soon enough Eridan had enough room to stand, one foot on either side of its fin, and then he was up to his ankles. Then knees. 

A wave sent the water almost up to his waist for a moment; heart racing, fins rigid, he held his arms out for balance and stared down into the water. It was dark. He could see the whale, some plankton--not much--a few small fish, further down. No hint of writhing white knots of flesh. Not even an inkling of hooked fangs bigger than him ringing sucker disks the size of boats, running in double spirals up the length of lashing tentacles thicker than twelve of this fucking whale. No gapping beak, twisting a vile clusterous tongue around the first throbbing syllable of shitty omnimurder because it hadn’t had a big enough meal stuffed in it lately. It was black down there, under the whale. Under his feet. Under his armpits, now. He couldn’t see her.

She was down there anyway, in the dark and the cold. She could see him. She was hungry.

“FUCKING FINE!” he wailed, arms flailing. The whale whooshed back to surface, leaving Eridan sprawled over its blowhole. It blew, making an extremely rude sound against the wet shirt over his back. Eridan rolled to his feet, heels slipping on rubbery skin, and nearly losing his balance as he tried to paw off whatever weird sort of whale-snot was almost certainly stuck on him. He flung a palmful of goo at the whale’s head. “I’m takin off my fuckin pants, look.”

He crossed his arms in front of him, clutched two handfuls of shirt, and tugged up.

“IT SEEMS THAT YOU’VE MISTAKEN YOUR SHIRT FOR YOUR PANTS, WHICH IS A VERY STRANGE MISTAKE FOR YOU TO MAKE SINCE THEY ARE VERY DIFFERENT.”

Eridan’s voice was muffled by the layer of fabric around his head. “I’ll get there!”

“LEAVE THE SHIRT ON,” said the whale with a little shimmy that sent ripples in a ring.  
“The helllllll,” Eridan groaned, letting his shirt and his shoulders both drop. “Nobody does that on account a it looks so-”

“YOU SHOULD STOP TALKING ABOUT HOW ANYONE WHO SAW YOU WEARING A SHIRT AND NO PANTS WOULD POINT AND LAUGH, EVEN THOUGH THEY WOULD DEFINITELY DO THAT, AND FOCUS ON THINGS THAT ARE ACTUALLY IMPORTANT RIGHT NOW SUCH AS TAKING OFF YOUR PANTS.”

“I hate you so much,” said Eridan, and hunkered down to untie his shoes. 

The whale made an indistinct rumbling honk. “THROW THEM,” it said.

He did, with the bare minimum of effort, but down they went into the depths anyway. He watched them go, glumly, and threw his purple socks after them. Then the snap of his pants, then the zipper, and one leg at a time, wobbling, he shucked them. Folding the stripes tidily over one arm, he stood there on the whale’s back knowing exactly what it was going to say next.

“THOSE TOO,” it said, of course, but they were already airborne. Eridan took a moment of vengeful pleasure in the fact that the damn whale wouldn’t get a chance to tell him to take his briefs off, because he wasn’t wearing any. So there.

“WHY AREN’T YOU WEARING UNDERWEAR,” said the whale. “THAT ISN’T VERY SANITARY. WHEN YOU DO THAT, IT’S LIKE WEARING YOUR PANTS AS UNDERWEAR AND THERE IS A REASON UNDERWEAR HAS TO BE WASHED A LOT.”

“I’m not evven askin howw it is you know so much about underwwear considerin you’re a wwhale and you’re swwimmin around naked all the time,” said Eridan, watching his pants sink. For a moment, he felt jealous. He could just...follow them. But then She’d see him, and as he was now she’d be able to see straight up his wastechute. The thought alone made him shiver, and fold his arms tightly over his chest. 

“And anywway by my accountin it’s about time you coughed up that fuckin’ boat so I can roww home bare-ass for your twwisted amusement or wwhatever this is. Boat. Noww.”

“‘BOAT NOWWWWWWWW’,” said the whale, droning the last word into a warbling subsonic whine that made the water wriggle. “THAT IS HOW YOU SOUND, BUT NOT AS IMPRESSIVE.”

Eridan drew in a huge breath and bellowed out a sound that went from honk to squeak and back. “That’s wwhat YOU sound like,” he spat, “Like a huge stupid puffer wwho just saww a sh-”

“BECAUSE YOU ARE RUDE AND IT’S FUNNY THAT YOU COULD JUST LEAVE BUT DON’T, NOW I HAVE DECIDED YOU NEED TO MAKE SLURRY BEFORE YOU CAN HAVE A BOAT. I THINK THAT YOU SHOULD START RIGHT NOW.”

The whale started to swim, then, cutting with smooth efficiency through the low swells of waves. The wooden flotsam retreated, including the oar.

“Hey you fuck! I need that!” He ran toward the whale’s tail and stopped, swaying in the sloshing knee-deep water as it lifted and lowered the enormous fin. “That’s part of the boat and I already took off my pants for you, wwhat cheating shit is this?”

“I THOUGHT I WOULD GO SEE SOME FRIENDS,” said the whale. “BECAUSE YOU ARE GETTING A LITTLE BORING.”

“I hate you so fuckin much.” Eridan glared up the whale’s body toward its head, where one eye hiked back to watch him.

“MAYBE YOU SHOULD BE LESS BORING, AND START MAKING SLURRY INSTEAD, SO YOU CAN ROW AWAY BEFORE A LOT OF OTHER PEOPLE SEE YOU WITH A SHIRT AND NO PANTS ON.”

“Other wwhales, not other people!”

“RUDE,” said the whale, cruising unperturbed through the water. “DO I HAVE TO TELL YOU HOW TO DO THIS? I ASSUMED YOU KNEW. WOULD IT HELP IF I MADE IMPERIAL DRONE NOISES? I CAN DO THAT.”

Eridan frantically waved his hands: no, no, NO. “Look,” he pleaded, “you’re a shitty cetacean an all so you’ve got no idea wwhat that means but I’m on it, look, I’m wworkin on it right noww.” He hooked a couple of fingers up into his nook and started a fumbling rummage around for either the bulge of his nub or the seedflap--it wasn’t as though he was one of those trolls that sat around pailing themselves for fun, because how perverse could you get? He bent his knees a little further, but there was no arguing that the posture of doing this was hellaciously awkward. The whale was an asshole. “I’m gettin there any second now, no need to get drones invvolvved or anythin, can you seriously just really not-”

All at once the whale made a thrumming boom, a sound Eridan could feel through his feet and in all the cavities of his body. His globes, unfortunately, were included; that thrum was uncannily akin to the thrusters (ha-ha) that kept the Drones airborne as they hovered from place to place to ensure the survival of the fittest. The whale paused, for breath or who-knew-what, and when it started to make that awful sound again there was a new harmonic, a shrill squeal that meant the Drone was not just approaching, but close. Eridan’s knees buckled and he dropped to dig his nails into the whale’s back, barnacles crunching under the tough skin covering his knees. The high pitch made his earfins flare rigid, twitching with each frantic beat of his chilly seadweller heart. 

The low boom dove into his gut. His back arched, his throat choked on a groan, and his bulge shoved his hand out of the way out of its sheath in a slop of violet muck; the narrow, flailing tip of it flicked a ropy strand up the front of his shirt. He clamped his eyes shut. It was bad enough this was happening, he didn’t want to watch it too.

“Shiiiiiit,” he whined, hips hunching inward as the muscles of his stomach threatened to cramp. “Howw do you evven knoww wwhat that sounds like. Don’t tell me. Stop making it. Just shut up and I’ll-”

The whale did stop. Eridan could breathe again, and dug a hand down into the swamp of his crotch to clutch at the base of his bulge and start an urgent rhythmic stroke of its base as the rest of it twined and writhed a slick mess up his wrist.

“THE DRONES COME AROUND PRETTY MUCH EVERY SWEEP,” said the whale, as though this was a self-evidently obvious thing. Which it was, Eridan knew that, but he hadn’t figured anybody other than trolls actually bothered to pay attention. “ARE YOU REALLY JUST GOING TO DO IT THAT WAY?”

“YES!”

“WELL.” The whale’s body shifted a little, tilting to let some of its bow sweep wash over its back and rinse some of the purple off. Seawater swept over Eridan’s knees, then receded. “IT’S JUST THAT MOST TROLLS DON’T TAKE SO LONG, OR FOCUS ON THE BULGE SO MUCH.”

His fist pumped at a handful of bulge and slick, but there was no point stopping now to tell the whale off, The sooner he could get the slurry out, the sooner he could row home and remind himself at regular intervals that no one else had seen his. His bulge pulsed and the end flipped about languidly, nerves cooling as the spike of panic receded. Eridan swore at it, and tried to imagine up some motivation. Feferi. Vriska. The full-length mirror on the inside of his front door. 

White, writhing tentacles towering up past him, receding into inky benthos in all directions. A beak, slitting the plain of white death open into a black gap directly beneath him. 

That did it. The growing ache in his globes, a heated sense of impending cramp bracketing his seedflap in the unexplored geography inside his abdomen, suggested that he was getting somewhere--and then the urgency of it receded, even as he abused his bulge with renewed vigor. Damn it, why hadn’t he been one of those sick fucks who watched porn?

“YOU AREN’T VERY GOOD AT THIS.”  
Eridan’s hand, the one that was supporting him and not clambering around his slurry apparatus, dug fiercely into the whale’s skin. His clenched teeth managed a grin as gouges opened up under his nails and blood pooled under his palm. 

“OW,” the whale said. “BUT REALLY. THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE LIFE OR DEATH FOR YOU AT SOME POINT, YOU KNOW.”

“Just stop talkin. Just. I got this.” He did not have this. Nothing he did to his bulge was doing anything to bring the blood, or slurry, or whatever, back to his globes. 

“MAYBE IF YOU PUT A FEW FINGERS INTO YOUR NOOK? PEOPLE WHO ARE BETTER AT MAKING SLURRY DO THAT, AND ARE THEREFORE BETTER AT LIFE THAN YOU ARE. ALSO, HELLO.”

Another whale’s fin briefly cut at the water several meters away, and then a whooshing blow of greeting. 

Fuck. FUCK.

Tears stinging into the corners of his eyes, he hunched his back and crammed most of his hand up his nook.

“THAT MIGHT BE A LITTLE EXCESSIVE.”

“Shut up!”

“MOST PEOPLE JUST USE ONE OR TWO, OR A PIECE OF SOMETHING.”

“Shut UP!”

His bulge insisted on interfering and nearly tied itself into a knot as he rummaged frantically in his nook--what was he even looking for? It all felt like nook! Was this supposed to DO something?

“THAT DOESN’T SEEM TO BE WORKING OUT FOR YOU EITHER. RANDOLPH, ARE YOU WATCHING THIS TOO?”

The other whale blew again, twice.

The first whale made a basso rumble. “I KNOW, RIGHT?”

He should have watched porn. He should have watched that stupid awful Imperial-sponsored porn on the schoolfeed. He should have done his pailing homework instead of fucking off to do important shit like saving the lives of almost every troll in the universe from death by glub. How did this shit even happen, this whale thing, this stupid perverted whale and its shitty perverted friend who probably just went around being as terrible as they possibly could be to innocent trolls like him? They probably did this every night. 

The loathing, the utterly sincere loathing, wasn’t anything like a kismesisitude. Perish the thought of even having one of those with a whale. But it was close enough cousins to a pitch feeling that there was a new tension in his guts, a swelling sensation, and he made the most embarrassing whine of relief when that swell led two of his fingers to a space in his nook that parted, and there, finally, was his seedflap. Or something. Something that worked, when he stroked it.

“ABOUT TIME,” said the whale. “I WAS ALMOST READY TO GIVE UP.”

“Hneh-” The whale could fuck off. Eridan tipped forward and leaned his forehead against the bloodied rubbery skin so he could reach further, getting two wriggling fingers far enough past the flap to shuttle in the wet cleft between the globes themselves, and it was working, it was WORKING, it almost felt good even, he could do this-

“Fffuckin shit fuck you fuck you fuck you ffffuuuuuck youuuuuuu-”

“I ALMOST FELT BAD ENOUGH TO GIVE YOU BACK YOUR BOAT ANYWAY. RANDOLPH, YOU PROBABLY WANT TO WATCH THIS NEXT BIT.”

It worked, it WORKED, the cramp and the heat and the swell of fluid in his globes all came to a head and with a shock that wasn’t quite pain, they erupted in a viscous torrent between his fingers, down his nook, and splutted out past his aching wrist right onto the fucking whale, who had to give him his boat back now. He flopped onto his side, panting, hip and ribs painted violet and red with slurry and whale blood. His hand made a ‘schluck’ sound as it came free.

There was water on his glasses. There was slurry in his hair, now. Randolph’s blow was close enough to spatter him with water and whale snot. 

“Gimme my fuckin boat,” Eridan said, defeated. “I made your fuckin slurry you sick wwhale, gimme my fuckin’ boat, leave me the fuck alone.”

Its back heaved a bit, and a few seconds later some oily bubbles and a cluster of shattered planks popped to the surface. Randolph blew again, and rolled in the water before disappearing entirely. 

“YOU SHOULD PROBABLY PRACTICE BEFORE YOU COME BACK,” said the whale, and dropped out from underneath him to leave him awash in his own mess, next to the clutch of flotsam.

...that ASSHOLE.

He climbed on a plank. He paddled. It would take longer to get home, but fuck it, at least She wouldn’t be able to look up his nook on the way.


End file.
